Ancient ring forts and crannogs inspired Peter Cassidy to create a sculptural piece of architecture that is at once an exciting and calming place to live, discovers Colin Coyle

When Peter Cassidy decided to create a sloping, glass-fronted home inspired by the half-moon contours of an ancient ring fort, he found himself on a steep learning curve. The architect’s convention-bending design baffled planners, ran over budget and past deadline.

“It’s lucky I had a sympathetic client,” he says of the modernist Co Wexford house he designed for himself.

Unusually, Cassidy also had a sympathetic builder. “In the mid-1990s, I worked on two small mews houses in Charleville Close in Rathmines with a builder called Richie Howlin. When the houses sold, myself and Richie decided to work on other projects together but we couldn’t find the right site. The property boom had really begun to kick in and we foolishly ruled out lots of sites because we thought they were overpriced,” he says.

Howlin came to the rescue of the fledgling partnership when he asked Cassidy to help him develop